A certain famous, respected and influential merchant came to Bahauddin Naqshbandi. He said at a public meeting:
“I have come to place myself at your disposal and at the disposal of your Teaching. I ask you to accept me as a student.
Bahauddin asked him:
—Why do you think that you are able to benefit from the Teaching?
The merchant replied:
“Everything that I knew and loved in the poetry and teachings of the ancients, that is captured in their books, I find in you. Everything that other Sufi teachers preach, tell and convey from the wise, I actually find in you in completeness and perfection, which I do not find in them. I regard you as an equal among equals with the Great Ones, because I can sense in you and in everything that surrounds you the aroma of Truth.
Bahauddin told the man to leave, saying that he would inform him of his decision as to whether it could be accepted in due course. Six months later, Bahauddin called the merchant to him and asked:
“Are you ready to publicly exchange opinions with me?”
He replied:
- Yes, with love and desire.
During the morning meeting, Bahauddin called this man from the circle of listeners and ordered him to sit next to him. He told his listeners:
- This is so-and-so, the well-known king of the merchants of this city. Six months ago he came here, believing that he could detect the aroma of Truth in everything that surrounds me.
The merchant said:
“This period of trial and separation, these six months without the opportunity to look even briefly at the Teacher, this exile forced me to immerse myself even more deeply in the classics so that I could at least maintain at least some kind of relationship with the one whom I want to serve - with Bahauddin El Shah himself, completely identical with the Great Ones.
Bahauddin said:
“Six months have passed since you were last here; you worked in your shop and you studied the lives of the great Sufis. You might, however, study me, since you regard me as clearly equal to the Knowers of the past, because every week I visited your shop twice. In the past six months, during which we have not been in contact, I have visited your shop forty-eight times. On many occasions, you and I would talk because I was making some purchases or selling something. Because of the goods and because of a simple change in appearance, you did not recognize me, where is the feeling of the “aroma of Truth” here?
The merchant was silent. Bahauddin continued:
“When you come close to a person whom others call Bahauddin, you can feel that he is the Truth. When you meet a person who calls himself the merchant Khwaje Alavi (one of the pseudonyms of Bahauddin), you cannot discern the aroma of Truth in what surrounds Alavi. You noticeably find in Naqshband only what others preach, without having it yourself. In Alavi you do not find what the wise are, but what they do not seem to be. The verses and teachings you spoke of are just external manifestations. You feed on external manifestations - I ask you, do not give this the name of spirituality.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru